Australian cricket legend and Delhi Daredevils head coach Ricky Ponting heaped praises on 20-year-old Indian cricketer Rishabh Pant after Delhi Daredevils finished the tournament on a winning note by thrashing Mumbai by 11 runs.
Though the win did not do much for Delhi that was placed in the bottom of the table, Mumbai Indians are now out of play-offs after the loss.
Talking about Sunday’s game and Rishabh Pant’s performance, Ricky Ponting said, “He has had an outstanding season. Wearing the orange cap now, it will be outstanding if he is able to retain that. Kane Williamson obviously is breathing down his throat. It is great recognition for the personal season that Rishabh has had.”
In the 11th season of the Indian Premier League (IPL), Pant scored one century and five 50s with an average run rate of 52.61.
“Across the board we needed a more even contribution, our top order batsmen had to, if we were to be a threat to challenge for the title this year. Shreyas Iyer, probably over 400 runs (411), he can hold his head up,” Pant said at the media interaction after the final game.
In IPL 2018, Delhi Daredevils biggest disappointment was Australian limited-overs specialist, Glenn Maxwell. Maxwell scored just 169 runs and took five wickets in his 12 games.
Talking about Maxwell’s performance, Ponting said, “A few weeks before this tournament, I spend some time with him in the tri-series, did a lot of work with him there. To be honest, the thing that hurt him the most was just how well Rishabh played.”
Having started at the unfamiliar No. 5 slot, Ponting said, Maxwell could not find his moorings and that left him frustrated.
“Having spoken to him a few times he said he has been frustrated that he hasn’t been able to have an impact in the result in a lot of these games. He is an outstanding cricketer, there is no doubt about that. He had a disappointing IPL; we stuck with him because every game for Delhi, even though we didn’t qualify, we were taking every game as a final, looking at it as a chance of winning the game. If you look at the overseas batsmen, we felt Maxwell was going to be the best chance of being a match-winning batsman for us. We stuck with him,” he remarked.